month for three years; after the third year to become a junior
partner; remaining at Bombay in that capacity for two years more.

This he told to Hilary and Ascott in almost as few words as I have
here put it--for brevity seemed a refuge to him. It was also to one
of them. But Ascott asked so many questions that his aunt needed to
ask none. She only listened, and tried to take all in, and understand
it, that is, in a consecutive, intelligent, business shape, without
feeling it. She dared not let herself feel it, not for a second, till
they were out, arm-in-arm, under the quiet winter stars. Then she
heard his voice asking her, "So you think I was right?"

"Right?" she echoed mechanically.

"I mean in accepting that sudden chance, and changing my whole plan
of life. I did not do it--believe me--without a motive."

"What motive?" she would once unhesitatingly have asked; now she could
not.

Robert Lyon continued speaking, distinctly and yet in an undertone,
that though Ascott was walking a few yards off, Hilary felt was meant
for her alone to hear.

"The change is, you perceive, from the life of a student to that of a
man of business. I do not deny that I preferred the first. Once upon
a time to be a fellow in a college, or a professor, or the like, was
my utmost aim and I would have half killed myself to attain it. Now,
I think differently."